Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Grown-up Toy Storage, Day 9 Organizing Challenge

Day 9 is supposed to be "Toy Storage" Well, Ellie's only toys at the moment are her pillow (my stomach) and her kick boxing bag, (my bladder) occasionally she plays the kicking stretch out game with my ribs too. I enjoyed reading a bunch of other blogs about toy storage, hopefully I can get a system set in place that will work well when we set everything up.

We have received bunches of hand me down toys and I'm sure we will get even more at the baby showers, I need to organize all of that, eventually.

For now though I decided to organize some of the grown up toys.

I had just straighted and prettied up this shelf yesterday, sorry, no before pic, just imagine stuff that doesn't belong, books mixed with games and randomness.

This looks fine to me. But "what is inside those lovely labeled boxes" you ask?

They could stay how they are, since they look pretty, but I know better, like I know that the PS1 label is on the PC games box, and the PS1 box has an NES label, the Wii box doesn't contain all the Wii stuff around the house and isn't labeled. Also, I'm certain there are dead headphones, chargers to phones we don't own, and owners manuals to dead cell phones in the PHONE box. Also, my big camera bag is somewhere in the craft room. I have no idea what is in that red box... Just to name a few imperfections.

I spent about 15 minutes on all those boxes.

CAMERA box: I pulled out everything that didn't need to be in there: Spanish owner manual, some other camera's owners manual, registration post card, expired warranty info, memory card reader cap to name a few. Then I gathered a few items from other spaces that belonged in the box that weren't, my camera bag, camera case, and battery chargers. (The USB cord was already labeled from when I went hog-wild labeling when I first got the label maker) To make everything fit better and be less jumbled in this box, the straps for the camera cases were tucked inside the cases. Also in this box is a fanny-pack thing that matches my camera case, because it made sense to keep the matching set together.

Next the PHONE box I tossed a box from a phone I sold over a year ago, several pairs of dead headphones, (I tested all the ones I could) and countless owner manuals from phones I don't have anymore.

What is left in the box: box/extra accessories for my current phone, package of screen protectors, extra SIM cards, back up phone/charger. This box also holds headphones and my portable speakers because I use the media player on my phones instead of having a separate mp3 player. Also, I opted to keep the small collection (5) of chargers to phones we don't own, because I have had lots of guests ask "hey do you have an extra charger for a blah blah blah phone?"

The WII box: I had labeled all these boxes before I got my Wii. It used to house my sister's Sega that she sold, I had removed the label, but never made a new one. I did the same thing as with the other boxes, pulled out all the expired warranty info, packaging from extra controllers, ads and fliers that had come with games etc. Originally this box held all my Wii games and controllers and accessories. I thought they would all fit, but apprently our collection has grown, once I collected all the games from the 2 places the Wii gets played, and tried, I found it wouldn't fit. So I decided the box would be just for accessories, the games can live on the bookshelf for now (as they did before I started today).All that is left: remote charger, remotes, remote accessories, owner manuals for the wii, the fit, and 1 for a remote.I grabbed my label maker and finally gave it a label.

Next I pulled out the NES (I mean PS1) and PS1 (I mean PC) game boxes. I straightened both (relocated some Wii accessories & game) and then swapped the PS1 stuff to it's correctly labeled box. The PC games went into the box labeled NES (was sold when we found we can download our fave NES games onto the Wii, as a way to de-clutter), my hubby needs to go through these and then it will likely be re purposed as Wii game storage, but he isn't home now, so that can wait.

The other 2 boxes on the shelf aren't for grown-up toy storage, but, since I was sitting on the floor in front of it, I decided to tackle those too.

The MAIL box

I pulled everything out and sorted it, there were quite a few items that didn't belong: photos, mementos, garbage, etc. I used to rip return addresses off of envelopes as a way to save addresses, but after organizing all the wedding invitation addresses, I don't need to do that any more. I also had a few pages of addresses from my mom's master list from 2 Christmases ago, and a list of addresses from last Christmas. I saved all those but I will be tossing them as soon as I check my master list, when I'm done blogging.

What is left in the box: business envelopes (greeting card envelopes were moved to my craft room, where I have bunches of card making supplies gathered) a post-it pad (I sometimes write a note and post-it to an envelope and clip it to the front door, i.e. "mail after Monday" "needs more postage" "sign then mail" etc) and our return address stamp. Usually there are stamps in here too, but we are all out, added that to the shopping list.

The last box on the shelf wasn't labeled, because it didn't have a set purpose. It was full of receipts, recipes, colored pencils, crayons, and 5 month old to-do and shopping lists. I recycled most of the receipts and lists and relocated everything else. Now, the box is empty!I have a few ideas for what to do with the box, but we will have to see what Toni has in store for the rest of the 21 days and see if its perfect for something else. I moved it to the slightly shrunken pile of boxes, bins and containers I collected before.

Oh, there are 2 other boxes on the shelf, one is wedding photos, the other is CDs, nothing to show off.

This is a picture all all the stuff and junk that didn't belong in those boxes:

It was all recycled, tossed, or relocated.

Once I get Ellie's stuff all situated, I will share, although newborn toys arent as clutterupable as older kids.

Looks like your grown up toys have been tough to keep up with - until now! Super job! I know I sometimes throw things in the right box {and it still looks nice} and then have to go back later on and work on cleaning out the actual box! Very nice!

About Me

I'm a mother of 2 girls and a wife for going on 8 years. I have an Associate's Degree in Early Childhood Education but I intend on continuing my education and work in lactation. I am passionate about breastfeeding. I did an internship with WIC's lactation group, and I am one of the core members of the Marion County Breastfeeding Coalition. I am a peer counselor for the Nursing Mothers Council and I would also like to be a Le Leche Leader in the future. I love planning parties!
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